NEW TOY, YOU'LL NOT SEE ANOTHER!!!
Discussion
About a year ago I came across the car where it was stored as part of a significant private collection just outside Norwich, not an every day occurrence given there are only four Guara’s in the UK.
After a number of discussions with the owner a year later I finally collected her yesterday and thought it was time to share the good news with the PH collective.
The car first came to the UK about nine years ago after first having been registered in Germany and has only travelled about 8,500 miles and aside from being pretty dusty she is amazingly tight after a good amount of recommissioning work. The BMW V8 seems free from the historic nicasil issues and is due to be given the once over on the local BMW dealers diagnostic computer on Monday ahead of departing for Le Mans.
First though is my school reunion tomorrow evening, well you would wouldn’t you?
Now to the meaty parts, she sounds pure Group C inside, the gearbox whine is pretty much on a par with a supercharger about 2 inches from your left ear but given the engine and gearbox are all stressed the car is amazingly agile, coupled to a weight of 1200 kgs she handles brilliantly but the width is a bit of an issue, 6’8” at the rear!
In terms of outright grunt it’s nowhere near my Turbo but you wouldn’t really expect it to at 300 bhp but is none the less junior league supercar. The first litmus test will be its first track day but I am pretty hopefully she’ll do very well, 6 pot Brembo’s on the front feel brilliant but the composite body would be a real headache to fix. DeTomaso closed its about three years ago so I’m on the hunt for the manufacturer of the body shell and have a trip to Modena in July to do some ground work
Historically the car started life out the remnants of the Maserati Barcheta project and if my local PH mucker 993RSR is to be believed they made a pretty decent track weapon having followed one round Spa at pace. What really did for it was the original £100k price tag and a mid nineties launch, the Guara is very much on the same plane as Noble with a major twist of Italina / Argentinean DNA
Hopefully I’ll get some better photos soon but the latest DeeTee is more grin per pound than anything I’ve ever owned
After a number of discussions with the owner a year later I finally collected her yesterday and thought it was time to share the good news with the PH collective.
The car first came to the UK about nine years ago after first having been registered in Germany and has only travelled about 8,500 miles and aside from being pretty dusty she is amazingly tight after a good amount of recommissioning work. The BMW V8 seems free from the historic nicasil issues and is due to be given the once over on the local BMW dealers diagnostic computer on Monday ahead of departing for Le Mans.
First though is my school reunion tomorrow evening, well you would wouldn’t you?
Now to the meaty parts, she sounds pure Group C inside, the gearbox whine is pretty much on a par with a supercharger about 2 inches from your left ear but given the engine and gearbox are all stressed the car is amazingly agile, coupled to a weight of 1200 kgs she handles brilliantly but the width is a bit of an issue, 6’8” at the rear!
In terms of outright grunt it’s nowhere near my Turbo but you wouldn’t really expect it to at 300 bhp but is none the less junior league supercar. The first litmus test will be its first track day but I am pretty hopefully she’ll do very well, 6 pot Brembo’s on the front feel brilliant but the composite body would be a real headache to fix. DeTomaso closed its about three years ago so I’m on the hunt for the manufacturer of the body shell and have a trip to Modena in July to do some ground work
Historically the car started life out the remnants of the Maserati Barcheta project and if my local PH mucker 993RSR is to be believed they made a pretty decent track weapon having followed one round Spa at pace. What really did for it was the original £100k price tag and a mid nineties launch, the Guara is very much on the same plane as Noble with a major twist of Italina / Argentinean DNA
Hopefully I’ll get some better photos soon but the latest DeeTee is more grin per pound than anything I’ve ever owned
Some additional information...
The name Guara has been suggested it comes from a some sort of Argentinean dog breed. Wrong (the only Argentinean pure dog breed is the Dogo). This name comes from a fox species, with name "Aguara Guazu" in the Guarani language (spoken in Paraguay, in fact, it's second official language) which means "big fox" and inhabits in northern Argentina.
Now, a Patagonian fox breed (now extinct), also known as "fox from Malvinas" (or "Falklands fox" for you guys...) was indeed named Guara (not Aguara) at it shares some looks from the Aguara, but its closer to a dog (in fact, a mix between fox and wolf).
As for the car, one of its notable features is its suspension system designed by another Argentinean, Enrique Scalabroni, who also used to work in F1 (Williams, Ferrari -and consultant for Sauber-).
A truly great car.
The name Guara has been suggested it comes from a some sort of Argentinean dog breed. Wrong (the only Argentinean pure dog breed is the Dogo). This name comes from a fox species, with name "Aguara Guazu" in the Guarani language (spoken in Paraguay, in fact, it's second official language) which means "big fox" and inhabits in northern Argentina.
Now, a Patagonian fox breed (now extinct), also known as "fox from Malvinas" (or "Falklands fox" for you guys...) was indeed named Guara (not Aguara) at it shares some looks from the Aguara, but its closer to a dog (in fact, a mix between fox and wolf).
As for the car, one of its notable features is its suspension system designed by another Argentinean, Enrique Scalabroni, who also used to work in F1 (Williams, Ferrari -and consultant for Sauber-).
A truly great car.
Now that really does look something special 
If fact it's been brought to my attention by someone who'd like to book it if it was available for below
As you're EA if you may have heard of Kimbolton Show
http://www.pistonheads.com/calendar/event.asp?i=18...
But as well as people admiring it how about
www.sportingbears.org.uk/DreamRides/sbmc_eventsDre...
Just an idea
If fact it's been brought to my attention by someone who'd like to book it if it was available for below
As you're EA if you may have heard of Kimbolton Show
http://www.pistonheads.com/calendar/event.asp?i=18...
But as well as people admiring it how about
www.sportingbears.org.uk/DreamRides/sbmc_eventsDre...
Just an idea
Cheers one and all, I’ll try to pick up on a few of the points raised so far.
The original owner’s collection is considerable; of the cars I know about he has two DeTomaso Longchamp Spyder’s one an original factory car and one chopped later. Countach QV, Ford GT, Ford RS 200, DeTomaso Guara Spyder, Aston Vanquish, Metro 6R4, I think he still has an EB110 and there is a strong suggestion of a 1001 BHP VW being on its way.
There are many more to add to this list so the real reason the Guara was released was to see it stay in the club, get some proper use and see it enjoy life a bit more. Unfortunately the Longchamp Spyder is looking a bit pricey at the moment but it looks a good enough reason to keep working hard
Over the last few days I’ve been inundated with ‘what is it’ ‘how much did it cost’ ‘how fast is it’ which gives a good opportunity to promote the DeTomaso name a bit.
Troesma or anybody, if there is anything interesting or relevant about DeTomaso feel free to share it, the bit about the name is first rate and any input from somebody who knew Alessandro is really well worth sharing. It would be a real shame to see the marque slip into the history books after having provided the world with the first truly affordable mid engines supercar
There has only ever been a couple of books of note about DeTomaso, one by Wallace Wyss which is by far and a way the best and another one more recently by Philip Olcyzk. Enough about the last one but some of you may have seen the article about the DeTomaso P70 in this months Classic Cars ahem……. cough…….. gets coat…….a true
of a motor
As for a few more photos and indeed a video just so you can hear the truly extraordinary noise she makes, I’m working on it and it way well entail another local PH-er being sat in the boot of the Rangie with the tailgate open to get the best results.
Scalabroni did indeed design the suspension for the Guara and it is absolutely fantastic, the car handles brilliantly, he did indeed work for Frank Williams who of course also drove for Alessadro DeTomaso many moons ago, history as ever repast it self
To the owner of the stickered up skyline yesterday, I think not…………………………….
The original owner’s collection is considerable; of the cars I know about he has two DeTomaso Longchamp Spyder’s one an original factory car and one chopped later. Countach QV, Ford GT, Ford RS 200, DeTomaso Guara Spyder, Aston Vanquish, Metro 6R4, I think he still has an EB110 and there is a strong suggestion of a 1001 BHP VW being on its way.
There are many more to add to this list so the real reason the Guara was released was to see it stay in the club, get some proper use and see it enjoy life a bit more. Unfortunately the Longchamp Spyder is looking a bit pricey at the moment but it looks a good enough reason to keep working hard
Over the last few days I’ve been inundated with ‘what is it’ ‘how much did it cost’ ‘how fast is it’ which gives a good opportunity to promote the DeTomaso name a bit.
Troesma or anybody, if there is anything interesting or relevant about DeTomaso feel free to share it, the bit about the name is first rate and any input from somebody who knew Alessandro is really well worth sharing. It would be a real shame to see the marque slip into the history books after having provided the world with the first truly affordable mid engines supercar
There has only ever been a couple of books of note about DeTomaso, one by Wallace Wyss which is by far and a way the best and another one more recently by Philip Olcyzk. Enough about the last one but some of you may have seen the article about the DeTomaso P70 in this months Classic Cars ahem……. cough…….. gets coat…….a true
of a motorAs for a few more photos and indeed a video just so you can hear the truly extraordinary noise she makes, I’m working on it and it way well entail another local PH-er being sat in the boot of the Rangie with the tailgate open to get the best results.
Scalabroni did indeed design the suspension for the Guara and it is absolutely fantastic, the car handles brilliantly, he did indeed work for Frank Williams who of course also drove for Alessadro DeTomaso many moons ago, history as ever repast it self
To the owner of the stickered up skyline yesterday, I think not…………………………….
Edited by Vario-Rob on Sunday 10th June 14:37
propaganda said:
Any interior pics?
Here’s one of the other UK cars that had a bad day at the office. There are two possible schools of thought on this, either the lack of heat shields between the cats and the tank wasn’t a very good idea or a wishbone broke and fractured a fuel line, either way it was pretty terminal
by the way Clarkson wasn’t the first bloke to get stuck trying to cross Chelsea bridge, my own car needed a little bodywork doing before I bought it as the previous owner brought the traffic to a standstill doing the same, 6’8” into a 6’6” width restriction, not a good idea
Troesma said:
BTW yours is chassis # 0007, right?
Sent you PM.
Many thanks for your PM, I look forward to learning a little more about DeTomaso and the family. Having looked at your own car I see there is still a whiff of DeTomaso DNA there, well just about anyway!Sent you PM.
Actually at the time of writing all my paper work to the vehicle is locked up at my work and I can’t actually remember the chassis number of the top of my head but I’m 99% sure 80007 is owned by an Austrian called Franz Krump, my own car came along a little bit later
For any of you who are interested Ben Tyre’s website has some interesting stuff on it
http://www.qv500.com/detomasoregistry.php
Interesting... thought that one was the one you've purchased (looking at your photos, it had all the credentials).
And yes, my set of wheels has a sort of impronta from De Tomaso... being a Maserati... however not much DNA left on it, as Ferrari (well, Fiat) made it very clear that any ties with the past had to be broken (as much as possible) when taking full ownership of Maserati. Most of De Tomaso heritage has been lost, which is a shame.
Cheers
Ed
And yes, my set of wheels has a sort of impronta from De Tomaso... being a Maserati... however not much DNA left on it, as Ferrari (well, Fiat) made it very clear that any ties with the past had to be broken (as much as possible) when taking full ownership of Maserati. Most of De Tomaso heritage has been lost, which is a shame.
Cheers
Ed
Edited by Troesma on Sunday 10th June 21:47
I went out in the Guara last night with Rob, what a car; we all talk about road presence, but this thing knocks everything else into next week and that’s before you even touch upon its girth.
I think a recording of that engine has got to be done, it would be churlish not to.
There are many downsides living next to Rob (all the hookers, dealers etc, etc
) but his car collection is a different matter, keep up the good work!
Jonny
I think a recording of that engine has got to be done, it would be churlish not to.
There are many downsides living next to Rob (all the hookers, dealers etc, etc
) but his car collection is a different matter, keep up the good work!Jonny
Gassing Station | Supercar General | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff